Thursday, 3 December 2009

Remember the good old days before Shia LaBeouf took to ‘acting’, Robert Zemeckis made real films with real people in them and the Coen brothers effortlessly and with almost tedious regularity squirted out top-notch qualitertainment like Fargo and The Big Lebowski? Well, wake up, ask someone to slap you in the face as hard as they can, and accept the cold, hard reality of the present day, in which TheBeef is the star of the third-highest grossing film this year, Zemeckis can’t even remember what a real person looks like, and the Coen Brothers are making films like A Serious Man.

I can only really describe how terrible events are by bringing out The Incredible Suit’s Coen Brothers Qualitometer:

If ever there was a film in which a bunch of people said a bunch of stuff to some other people, then A Serious Man is it. No bikers from Hell, no hula-hoops, no bowling and no Dapper Dan. Just people. Talking.

8 comments
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'Assume On Air' is an anagram of 'A Serious Man'. So too 'I roam anuses', 'Assure I moan', 'Aim sore anus' & 'A name is ours'. None of them comes out as Danny DeVito who was a a serious man in On Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest which began the graph of his rise in Hollywood.

There, Anna Gram, Graphs & Devito all in one sentence; the lifeblood of any blog.

Ok Mr Suit, I haven't seen A Serious Man yet, but something struck me (not physically) as being mighty peculiar about that graph. And that is that you've marked Miller's Crossing as some kind of low-point on the Coen-o-meter and suggested that No Country For Old Men and Burn After Reading aren't the awesome Ladykillers redemptions that I believed they were. Really? Really?

Hi Doc. May I be so bold as to politely suggest that your graph-interpreting skills need a polish? Miller's Crossing is clearly at a position equal to, or higher than, five other films on the qualitometer, making it quite a stranger to this 'low point' of which you speak.

Furthermore, NCFOM & BAR... averagely average in The Incredible Suit's book, which as we all know is the only book that matters. Except for a sturdy thesaurus.

I second the "Miller's Crossing deserves much better" movement -- definitely outstrips Burn After Reading and No Country for Old Men by miles. And -- ahem -- raising Arizona rated that high? Oh well, taste varies, to be sure.. However, having seen all but one or two Coen films and quietly hoping for "the next one" to redeem recent failures, I must say that after A Serious Man, the comeback will be harder than ever before.. if it ever comes that is.

There's a lot of Miller's Crossing love out there and I'm cool with that, but it's not for me. In a Coen-off between MC and RA, you'll always find me putting on the voice of an old geezer and saying, "Son, you got a panty on your head"

Dude, I love some of your gags on this blog but if you are you are the sort of person who is defined by their belief that The Big Lebowski is the best Coen Brothers movie then you are are unlikely to grasp eerything that is going on in Serious Man.

Anon, thanks for your kind words. Actually I believe Fargo is the best Coen Brothers film, but in no way does that define me.

You're quite right, I didn't grasp everything that's going on in A Serious Man, but then it's horses for courses, innit? Different strokes for different folks, n'est-ce pas? This is my blog and that's my opinion. Everyone's a winner, especially me. Hooray!